Tuesday, October 12, 2010

DRUNKLORIA HERE posting about comic 804 because I promised Rob even though it is TOTALLY CUTTING INTO MY DRINKING TIME.

So here we have the recurring characters of this comic doing EXACTLY THE KIND OF SHIT YOU'D EXPECT THEM TO. Beret guy acted all quirky, black hat guy acted mischievous-on-the-verge-of-homidical, archetypcal xkcd girl acted all introspective and emo, and generic xkcd guy made some reference to a semi-obscure (in that you don't pick it up in generic high school/college courses) theorem. Randall thinks that you will find this hilarious. It is not.

Do you guys remember the show Family Matters? If you do, you're likely familiar with a character named Urkel. Poor Urkel started out as a supporting character and then became more and more the focus of the show as producers realized audiences loved his helpless dweebiness and slapstick ways. The problem, though, is that his character never developed beyond a one-note gimmick so that by the ninth season, most people wanted to FUCKING KILL THAT BASTARD URKEL. SAY "DID I DO THAT" ONE MORE TIME MOTHERFUCKER, I. DARE. YOU!

*hic*

That is the problem with this comic. It is basically the token characters doing exactly what they always do; nothing more. There's nothing clever or amusing in that. It's not even worth writing more than "this is completely fucking boring and I hate it." But I did anyway, because I am a talkative drunk.

ETA: Whoops, I linked to the wrong thing. This is because when I drink, I like to open multiple Wikipedia math articles and bask in how cool I am.

Anon: 7:34: I don't have a beef with the math reference in general, nore am I expecting loads of character development. I'd just like Randall to not use his recurring characters in practically the exact same way he always does. It's like If you watched Happy Days and Fonzie never did anything more but walk onto screen, say "Eyyyyyyyy," hit the jukebox, and walk off.

I actually feel like comparing xkcd to Family Matters is an insult to Family Matters. I'm sorry but I...I LIKE Family Matters. And I don't even like sitcoms. Seriously, there are like 3 sitcoms in the entire history of television that I actually like, and Family Matters is one of them. Over on xkcdsucksredux, this comic was compared to Friends...which is ANOTHER of the 3 sitcoms in the history of TV that I actually like. (The third is Roseanne.) Possible conclusion: My taste in sitcoms sucks? Fortunately, making this comment is not cutting into my drinking time; I am drunk right now.

I admit the strip wasn't really hilarious, but it was somewhat interesting. Analyzing the comic doesn't make it bad. And what exactly is so problematic in putting the token characters in a topical situation? I don't know if I'm just arguing for the sake of argument. I just feel like doing it if the comic isn't downright bad, possibly just boring.

Nah, it wasn't terrible, really (unless panel three REALLY bothers you). Boring at worst, and even then you could very well find something there amusing.

Token characters in a topical situation falls flat for character development, but that doesn't mean they can't make a joke. Whether you find it funny depends, but I certainly got a chuckle out of panels one and four.

I was going to write an angry review of 805 and send it to Rob "rotund" Mason and therefore earn everlasting fame and glory but fuck all there is to say about it is that it's shitty in exactly the same way that 206 was and I don't want to waste my succulent rage-juices on a rant so short.

Maybe I need to get as drunk as aloria to get it done but as I also have to write a paper before class today drinking would be highly discouraged

Aloria, I know you're the coolest writer of this blog, but, seriously? Alcohol and blog posts don't mix. THEY JUST DON'T!

So, this comic. Well, the xkcdsucksredux take was quite better(and on time! ;D ), but whatevers. I like the first panel. In fact, this comic is eerily arranged in descendant order of how much I liked each panel. If Beret Man wasn't a construct of random character traits, I guess he could be a nice source of humor more frequently. But yeah.

I'll give you the credit for addressing the issue of Randall and (non-existent) character development. I really wish he developed his characters more, but I guess it'd take EFFORT, and we all know Randall Munroe is effortophobic.

Comparing aloria's post to redux is like comparing the Bernstein Bears to Slaughter House Five. I'm not saying redux is as good and complex as Slaughter House Five, I'm just saying this post is much worse and much simpler than the Bernstein Bears. So much so, that the gaps between them are quite comparable.

@Anon 5:51needs moar cunnilingus

@VesThanks for that. That's what I liked about Carl, he always had links like that to supplement and support his rage.

Well your webcomic review is almost as terrible as aloria's drunken ramblings, Timofei. So what's your point?

I'm a fanboy of good writing.

Rob's posts are usually witty and insightful.Carl's are insightful and well researched.And redux is on time and has a lot to say before anyone else has said anything.

Timofei is a pretty cool guy. eh posts stuff and doesn't afraid of anything. But you, Aloria, and probably a good 80% of the guest posters here are none of these, you're mostly boring and not funny when you post, and you really should stick to just commenting.

There were some stellar guest posts in the past though, I just can't name them off the top of my head.

If Randall makes his characters behave in a way that's unexpected (e.g. when hat guy suffers existential angst over the pointlessness of his brilliant pranks) then you complain that they're acting out of character.

If Randall makes his characters behave in a way that's perfectly in-character, you complain that they're just doing the same thing they're always doing. No, it's not like Fonzie just saying "ehhhh" all the time, because they're acting in-character in novel ways and making novel jokes. You can complain about the jokes if you like, but don't complain that the whole joke is just character-being-like-character, because that's what 90% of comic strip humour is about.

Oh, and after so much complaining that Randall had degenerated into high-school mathematics, doesn't he get some credit for freaking Banach-Tarski Theorem joke?

As for 805... actually I thought it was pretty funny. I can't analyze why.

Randall has come out with some crappy comics over the past few months, but the last two were actually pretty good.

Anon 7:20- hang on, how is he selling posters of 805? how the fuck would that work as a poster? I refuse to visit that site more than once (and less whenever possible) per comic so as to deny randy the traffic.

here's to hoping friday's comic makes me good and mad enough to write a guest post that all you fuckers will be forced to read!

Holy crap I didn't notice the awful notation the first time around because I just wanted to plough through all that text but... oh GOD. For someone who loves a nitpick he really did fuck up those notes.

For the unaware:All single quavers in every panel have the tail 'flicking' the wrong way, the end to the tail should point toward the head of the note. A lot of people do this though, even in it's wrongness it's a lot easier to notate that way so even professionals tend to do it. Not a biggy, but still lame coming from such as 'perfectionist'

5th panel 3rd note single quaver: FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU stem and tail on the wrong side even someone who's never played an instrument can see this looks fucking retarded oh god

Also every panel features a minim in spite of the fact that in all the lyrics presented only the word 'home' could possibly be that long, and even then it has a shift in pitch so there would be no minims in that whole passage.

This isn't even as good as my previous comment about rob's fat face needing liposuction so the rolls of fat didn't fall over his eyes and stop him from seeing the keyboard resulting in a shapley provile picture. Which got eaten

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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